


Anxiety And A Stutter, Really Not A Good Combination

by NicoAndTheNineGalaxies



Series: Stuttering Fics [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders is a Good Friend, Hot Topic, How Do I Tag, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I love that that's an actual tag, If I continue this, Logic | Logan Sanders Is A Good Friend, M/M, Skype, Stuttering, could theoretically be read as analogical, it might end up being prinxiety, just this part though, one use of a curse word, so i decided to make one, there is an astonishing lack of good fics with stutters, this is?? so random??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22195963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicoAndTheNineGalaxies/pseuds/NicoAndTheNineGalaxies
Summary: When Roman first meets Virgil, through his best friend’s boyfriend, Virgil doesn’t talk at all.Or, alternatively, Virgil stutters.  The title is pretty self-explanatory.
Relationships: Logic | Logan Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Stuttering Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1597720
Comments: 12
Kudos: 124





	Anxiety And A Stutter, Really Not A Good Combination

**Author's Note:**

> So, I stutter. I can cope with it pretty well, but it frustrates me sometimes, so I guess I'm writing about it now.
> 
> I base Virgil's stuttering in this fic on my own - I actually said a lot of his lines out loud before writing them and then tried to write them in the same way that I would naturally say them. I don't want this note to take forever, so I'll include more details at the end.
> 
> Enjoy!

When Roman first meets Virgil, through his best friend’s boyfriend, Virgil doesn’t talk at all.

“Oh, they’re over there. Logan!”

Patton waves at his boyfriend from across the cafe, tugging gently on Roman’s arm to pull him over to the table. Sitting next to Logan is a boy who looks to be just a little bit younger, wearing an oversized MCR hoodie that makes him look much smaller than he really is, with an indecipherable look in his darkly-lined eyes that are half-hidden by a shock of fluffy purple hair. Simply put, he looks like he may have bought roughly sixty-five percent of Hot Topic.

Logan and Patton greet each other, Patton smiling fondly even as Logan begins to ramble, and Roman knows that isn’t going to end anytime soon, so he turns to the fourth member of their group, who seems to be looking anywhere but the people around him. “Hey, I’m Roman.”

His head snaps up to look at Roman, and he opens his mouth, but doesn’t say a word. He tugs on Logan’s sleeve, drawing his attention.

“Right. Roman, Patton, this is Virgil.”

“I love your hair, kiddo,” Patton says with a kind smile.

Virgil ducks his head.

“How are you?” Roman asks.

Virgil looks away, seeming uncomfortable under everyone’s combined attention, and just gives him a thumbs-up in response.

Logan nods, seemingly satisfied, and turns back to Patton.

“They’re not going to stop for a while,” Roman points out, leaning across the table slightly to talk directly to Virgil. “Want to leave them alone? We can grab a different table.”

Virgil just nods and follows Roman to a table not far from their friends.

“So, have you got any hobbies?”

Roman sees Virgil swallow rather forcefully, open his mouth again, hesitate for a moment, and then shake his head.

“None?”

Virgil shrugs.

When the waitress comes by to take their orders, Virgil just points to water on the menu and nothing else.

After a few more questions, Roman decides that maybe Virgil just doesn’t like talking. Their conversation from then on is fairly one-sided, but Roman likes being the center of attention and Virgil seems more relieved than anything else, so he thinks that they’re both okay with that arrangement.

The next time Roman sees Virgil, it’s because Patton is Skyping with Logan.

Roman sits down next to Patton on the couch, scrolling through Instagram and occasionally leaning over to contribute to the conversation. Then, he hears an unfamiliar voice.

“He-hey, Logan, have you - have you seen my - ?”

There’s a brief moment of silence, and then Logan speaks.

“What do you need?”

“I-I - uh, I need my - my headphones.”

“You left them in the kitchen.”

“Thanks. Who are you - “

Whoever’s speaking gets caught on the next letter, a ‘t’ that gets held out until it starts to sound more like a wavering ‘s’ or ‘z.’ They start the sentence over, and it happens again. It takes a few moments before they can finally make it through to the end.

“Who are you - who are you talking to?”

“Patton,” Logan replies simply. “Well, and Roman.”

Roman glances over at Patton’s phone screen and sees a shock of purple hair by the door. “Hey, Virgil.”

Through the grainy image, he sees Virgil shrink back, offering a tight-lipped smile and disappearing.

“Is everything okay?” Patton asks.

Logan nods. “Everything’s fine. He just doesn’t like talking to new people. He’ll talk to you both in his own time.”

Roman takes Logan’s word for it.

He runs into Virgil again a week or so later at the mall.

“Oh, Virgil! It’s good to see you.”

Virgil nods stiffly with another one of his tight-lipped smiles.

“Where are you heading?”

Virgil points out the Hot Topic a few stores away, and Roman laughs.

“I should’ve known, right?”

Virgil laughs, actually laughs, and nods again.

“Want some company? I’ve got nothing going on,” Roman offers.

Virgil looks down, but nods ever so slightly, and they walk side by side into Hot Topic, where some song that Roman doesn’t recognize is playing over the speakers. Virgil obviously knows it, singing along softly as he browses the band merch section. Roman, on the other hand, is drawn toward everything he sees that is shiny, reflective, or Disney-themed. He’s so caught up in it that Virgil’s voice behind him makes him jump.

“You h - you heard me. When-when Logan was - “ He gets caught on the ‘t’ again. “When Logan was talking to Patton.”

“Yeah,” Roman says, turning to face Virgil directly. “Why?”

“Well, uh, well, Logan is-is the only - the only person I really, uh...talk to. No-no one else. I’m t-too s…” This time, he gets caught on the ‘s,’ like a hiss, and trails off, closing his eyes and trying again, brow furrowed and face flushed with embarrassment, a few times before he gets it right. “Scared.”

“Why?”

Virgil raises his eyebrows. “You really need to - you really need to ask - to-to ask why? I have anxiety  _ and _ a st - a stutter. Really not - not a good combination.”

“Why does it scare you, though?”

Virgil shrugs. “It’s-it’s just that - just that I…” He sighs almost angrily and runs a hand harshly through his hair. “I-I can’t fucking talk right! And I get so - I get so worried that people are going to - going t-to judge me for it.”

“...I don’t know what to say,” Roman eventually manages. “That sounds really tough, Virgil. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. It’s not - it’s not your fault. And before you - before you ask, there’s n-nothing you can do.”

“Well,” Roman starts with a sigh, “I just hope you know that I won’t judge you.”

Something in Virgil’s posture relaxes, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half-smile. “Thank-thank you, Roman.”

“Anytime. Are you going to get anything?”

Virgil shakes his head. “Nah, I just - I-I just like looking.”

“I’m probably going to head home, then. I’ll see you around, right?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you - see you around.”

**Author's Note:**

> I think the thing I took the most inspiration for from my own stutter was those moments when Virgil got stuck on certain letters, usually a 't' or an 's.' That happens to me pretty often and those letters are the bane of my existence. Whoever decided that the word for a stutter would BE stutter is honestly evil.
> 
> I also want to point out that, at least for me, it takes a LOT of concentration to get through a sentence without stuttering and most things I say involve stuttering at some point, but I get annoyed when a writer overuses stuttering in its most stereotypical form, repeating just the first letter of each word two to three times, because that's really not the whole story. Sometimes it's like that, but more often, I repeat multiple syllables and a chunk of a sentence rather than just the first letter. Other times, I might even repeat parts from the middle of a word (that first 't' in stutter tends to trip me up if I'm not careful) - and that's just repetition. Blocks (like, in the story, when Virgil is trying to ask Logan where his headphones are and he gets stuck after the word "my") and holding one letter or sound longer than usual are also parts of stutters.
> 
> I obviously don't have all the information on stutters, and I would recommend doing some of your own research if you want to know more. This is just my perspective, but I hope that 1. you maybe learned something and 2. you enjoyed this fic. This was pretty calming for me to write and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
> 
> Hope you're all doing well!
> 
> Nico x


End file.
